(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process and apparatus, for chemically reforming compounds in the presence of an electrical discharge plasma into a desired product gas mixture. Applicants designate one with ordinary skill in the art to be a chemist, or chemical engineer, or other person having familiarity with the chemical and electrolytic synthesis of fuel gases.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Prior to our invention, others recognized the need for a process and apparatus to synthesize a medium to high BTU content fuel gas from readily available compounds, such as water and hydrocarbons, and in some cases coal. Some examples of the efforts of workers in the art were revealed in a search of the Patent Office records requested by applicants prior to filing this application. A list of the patent references developed during that search appears below:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. Nos. BLUMENBERG 1,379,077 YARD ET AL 1,703,505 BLEECKER 1,837,519 WINKLER 1,857,799 BLEECKER 1,862,952 STEVENS 1,938,121 WEBER 2,029,748 BUTLER 2,660,556 TRANTHAM 2,994,377 DRYDEN 3,696,866 VESTAL 3,870,611 STOWELL ET AL 4,010,089 CARPENTER 4,037,655 CARR ET AL 4,233,132 Japanese Patents JAPAN 42-24312 JAPAN 47-33284 ______________________________________
Although the above references do not appear to directly pertain to applicants' invention, it is believed that the references do show the state of the art.
It appears from the references cited above that advances in this art tend to be limited and nonrevolutionary. Before our invention, synthesized fuels, especially those made by processes using electricity, were expensive in comparison with naturally occurring fuel gases. Even small improvements in the efficiency of a fuel synthesis process or apparatus often represents a great stride forward in the art.
Some of the references listed above disclose the synthesis of fuel gas from coal, water, and liquid hydrocarbons, wherein an electrode is wholly disposed within an oil layer, and spaced a selected distance away from the interface between a water layer and the supernatant oil layer. Electrical current is passed between the electrode tip and the interface to cause a heating of the components in the layers.
One problem with the prior art processes is that in order to disassociate molecules by electrolysis, large amounts of energy are required. Other processes that simply heat the oil layer to strip volatiles from the oil layer, do not reform compounds, such as water into useful fuel.
Another problem with the prior art is that of maintaining a constant distance or spacing of the immiscible interface from the electrode tip. For example, prior art devices had to be maintained absolutely still, and thus were fixed power sources.